Theft of Life (3 page)

‘Onto Mr Graves too?’ Mrs Martin asked.

‘Oh yes. He shouted at them to sit still and went up to change.’

Mr Graves’s valet sprang to his feet. ‘You should have told me at once!’

‘I’m telling you now, aren’t I?’ Philip said. ‘Where is that damn boy with my waistcoat?’

Mrs Martin took a deep breath. ‘And the table linens?’

‘Covered in coffee.’ The boy came back, waistcoat over his arm and red in the face. Philip grabbed it from him.

‘I shall take up fresh linen,’ Mrs Martin said. ‘William, perhaps you could go and serve. Philip, stay here until you have recovered your temper. Dido, is your mistress come down yet?’

‘She is dressed and will be down as soon as she has finished reading her sister’s letter.’ There was a collective groan.

‘Enough!’ Mrs Martin said. ‘Do the work you are paid for. Behave as if you work in the chophouse and you may go and earn your living there. Cook, if those sausages burn too, I shall take their purchase price from your wages.’ She found the key to the linen cupboard on the ring at her waist and strode out of the room.

By the time Mrs Martin reached it, the Breakfast Room was surprisingly quiet. Master Eustache was reading a book, but as Mrs Martin deftly removed and replaced the soiled cloth at the head of the table she thought she saw him look across at Lord Sussex from under his long dark eyelashes and grin. Jonathan, who would one day control a fortune to make him the envy of kings, was slightly flushed and staring hard at the table in front of him. He was a sensitive boy, eager to please, and hated it when Graves shouted at him. Stephen Westerman was chewing toast and sitting sideways in his seat to stare out into the Square behind him. Mrs Martin thought, not for the first time, that it was very sensible of Mrs Service to take her own modest breakfast in her room.

The door opened and Lady Susan entered, her back ramrod straight. She was shaping up to be a very pretty young woman, fair like her brother and with large blue eyes and clear skin, but quick and lively as a monkey. She had a talent for play-acting and loved to make the servants laugh with her impressions of their friends and neighbours. They were horribly accurate, but Mrs Martin had begun to try and persuade the staff not to encourage her. Susan would soon be entering the world of drawing rooms and assemblies, and her talents for mimicry would earn her no friends there. As soon as she saw that her guardian was not present, the girl seemed to relax a little and even smiled at William when he put down a plate in front of her and poured her tea. He winked at her, which Mrs Martin pretended not to notice.

‘Is there a kipper, Mrs Martin?’ Stephen asked.

‘I shall ask Cook to make you one, Master Stephen,’ she said, smoothing down the cloth.

‘Oh, may I have one too, Mrs Martin?’ Jonathan said.

‘Certainly, My Lord.’ The child blushed a deeper pink. They had been asked to address the children more formally now, and no one much liked the change, least of all the little aristocrats. Graves came back into the room, no stains of coffee visible.

‘And for me please,’ he said.

Mrs Martin nodded to William and took his station by the buffet as he left the room with the order.

‘I’m sorry I fell over, Graves,’ Jonathan said quietly.

‘I seem to have survived, Jon,’ he answered with a smile, then looked at Stephen Westerman and raised his eyebrows. Jonathan nudged him.

‘What? Oh, I’m sorry for running, Graves,’ the boy said quickly.

Graves leaned back while Mrs Martin shook out a napkin and placed it over his lap. ‘Good, the servants have enough to do without you two creating more work. Thank you, Mrs Martin.’ He looked at Susan. ‘And may I expect any apology from
you
this morning, Susan?’

The girl said nothing. Mrs Martin wanted to shake her. Any fool could see the girl was upset. Her eyes were damp and Anne Westerman’s nurse said Susan had been weeping since the letter from her headmistress had arrived, but she was proud as the devil himself.

‘I see. Jonathan, Stephen, we shall go to the balloon-raising as promised.’ The boys let out whoops, then sat very straight and quiet when Graves’s eye rested on them again. ‘Susan, I have spoken to Mrs Service. She goes to see an acquaintance of hers this morning who knows a great deal about female education. You shall go with her, not to Barbican.’

The girl turned towards him, her eyes wide. ‘Graves, no! It is Monsieur Blanchard! It is the same machine with which he crossed the Channel! I so want to go!’

Mr Graves only shook his head. ‘I want an apology and an explanation from you, Susan. There will be no more treats and excursions until I receive both. How can I take you into the civilised world until you know how to behave in it?’

It broke Mrs Martin’s heart. The girl stared back at her plate, breathing hard against her stays. Go steady, my dear, Mrs Martin thought, or you shall faint. After a few moments Susan spoke very quietly. ‘I have had all I wish to eat, Graves. May I leave the table?’ A bite of bread and butter was no breakfast for a growing girl, Mrs Martin thought, but it was not her place to speak.

‘You may.’

Susan left with an attempt at dignity, nodding to Mrs Martin as she did, but they all heard the choking noise she made as she began to cry the moment she was through the door, and her steps as she raced back upstairs to her room.

She must have passed Mrs Westerman on her way, for the latter came into the room looking rather distracted, and it was only William’s quick reactions that saved the kippers from being knocked to the floor as he entered with them on a tray behind her.

‘No balloons for Susan, I assume,’ she said as she sat down and Mrs Martin served her coffee from the fresh pot.

‘Good morning, Mrs Westerman,’ Graves replied. ‘No, not today. But Anne is still welcome to join us if you think she would enjoy it.’

Harriet Westerman smiled. ‘She is singing her new balloon song already. Her nurse will go with you, of course.’

‘She was singing it all last evening too,’ Stephen said, and rolled his eyes before beginning on his kipper. ‘I’m not sure it really is a song, Mama, when all she does is chant
baallooon!
in a silly voice.’

‘It amused you yesterday,’ she replied.

Her son grinned and swallowed whatever was in his mouth with a great sucking gulp, then waved his fork about as he answered. ‘Well, it is a bit funny, and then when we laughed she started doing it more and more. Even Susan laughed till she could hardly breathe in her frock.’

The mention of her name made everyone quiet. The fork was reapplied to the kipper. Graves cleared his throat. ‘Eustache, would you like to come and see the balloon?’

The boy looked around at them all from under his lashes without lowering his book, then sighed. ‘No, thank you, Graves.’

‘But Eustache, it’s a
balloon
!’ Stephen said in amazement, a forkful of kipper forgotten halfway to his mouth. ‘You can’t just want to stay here and
read
! We don’t even have lessons today.’ The bit of kipper fell back onto his plate and he huffed unhappily at it.

‘I can and I do, as it happens, Stephen.’ There was something about the way he spoke that made any phrase sound vaguely insulting. Clever enough to confuse his tutors at times, Eustache spoke like a boy three times his age. It could be unnerving, and such a way of watching people. Mrs Martin thought of what she had heard of his mother – beautiful, corrupted, mad – then found she could not look at Eustache any more. ‘I don’t have to go, do I, Graves?’

His guardian looked slightly uncomfortable. ‘No, Eustache, but you cannot stay in the house all day. If you do not wish to come with us, perhaps you might go with Mrs Service and Susan. At least you’ll get some air that way.’

Eustache looked back to his book and turned a page with a noisy sigh. ‘I will.’

Harriet finished her coffee and held the cup up to Mrs Martin. She went to refill it, glad to stop thinking about Eustache. Mrs Westerman had a lovely smile. It came from her eyes and made you realise she was a young woman still. Mrs Martin felt guilty about her less than charitable feelings for the young widow. The house was big enough for them all and she was a dear friend and neighbour in Sussex, so she should always be made welcome, even if she descended on them at a moment’s notice. Hadn’t Mrs Westerman saved the lives of Jonathan and Susan? Hadn’t she saved her brother-in-law from the executioner’s axe only last year? Yet here she was, polite and genteel as any woman. Let people call her wild or unfeeling. Let the booksellers and printmakers spread their sensational versions of her adventures. Let the Sussex gentry tut and fuss at her behaviour. It was jealousy. It was only natural that she could be a little eccentric, a little impulsive after all her travels and troubles. They all had cause to be grateful she was such good friends with Mr Gabriel Crowther – and Mrs Martin had never seen anything improper in their relationship. Anyone saying otherwise was a mean-spirited gossip! Mrs Westerman was a good woman who helped people. She had two handsome, kind-hearted children, an estate that produced some of the best potted fruits Mrs Martin had ever tasted, and she knew how to conduct herself with ease and charm in the best houses in the country … when she wanted to. Why, the King himself had bowed over her hand and called her a good woman.

Mrs Martin went back to her post by the sideboard. The morning was under her control again. The kippers were being eaten with apparent delight and William was handing round sausages, not burned, to those that wanted them. Philip would have calmed down by now, and with most of the family out for the day Mrs Martin would be free to make all those necessary adjustments in the household to keep it running as well as it should.

Mrs Westerman patted her napkin to her lips. ‘William, Dido said you needed to speak to me. Perhaps you can come to my room after breakfast. Something about a body?’

It is a testament to Mrs Martin’s character that the coffee pot was not dropped a second time.

B
REAKFAST DONE, HARRIET WESTERMAN
returned to her private sitting room on the first floor and picked up her sister’s letter again. It could be read as an apology for interfering, for telling Harriet her business, but as she restated all her arguments and insisted on the fact that her actions were justified, it did not read as a very
sincere
apology. Harriet loved her sister, but she irritated her deeply on occasion. Since Rachel had given birth to a daughter and bloomed into motherhood so completely, the irritations had increased, for she seemed to believe that the event had conferred on her some ultimate wisdom. Every time she wished to criticise Harriet or her behaviour, she began her little homilies with, ‘as the mother of a daughter …’ and this drove Harriet to screaming point. She had been the mother of a daughter for many years more than Rachel – not a particularly good one perhaps, but nevertheless … She put the letter down and stared miserably out into the Square below. There was the guilt again. Harriet loved her children, fiercely, absolutely, but her world consisted of more than her son, her daughter and their interests. She sometimes thought that made her an unnatural parent in Rachel’s eyes. Perhaps charging off to London had been a mistake. She had no pressing need to be here and at least in Hartswood she had plenty to do in running the estate.

A light rap on the door and William entered and gave his slight, formal bow. He looked grim and unhappy. Harriet asked him why they needed to speak and he replied that as far as he was concerned, they did not need to speak at all. He apologised, but it was all some foolishness of Dido’s.

‘Some foolishness of Dido’s? A body?’ Harriet’s voice was sharp. ‘Come, William. Simply tell me what happened and let me judge for myself. You were out of the house last night, I think?’

He did not look up but she heard him draw in a deep breath. ‘I was. And on my way back here this morning I saw the corpse of a Jamaican plantation-owner in St Paul’s churchyard, ma’am. Naked, apart from his undershirt, rope on his ankles and wrists as if he was being staked out for a whipping and with a punishment mask clamped round his head. I confess, Mrs Westerman, I don’t see what business that is of Dido’s, or of yours.’

There was a pause while Harriet let the words settle in her mind and controlled the shock of them. ‘I am minded to agree with you, William.’ She turned in her chair to look at him more directly, Rachel’s letter still loose between her fingers. ‘How did you know him if he was wearing a mask?’

‘They struck it off while I was watching.’

‘Was he stabbed? Throttled?’

William put his hands behind his back, spoke evenly. ‘I cannot say for certain, but I did not see much blood, and after a whipping of that kind there is normally a great deal.’

‘But there is something more in this. Dido would not want me to know about dead bodies as a matter of course; she fears I’ll tear my lace running after them. Why would she risk that by sending you to me?’

He did not smile. ‘No one knew him in the crowd. His name was Trimnell, Mrs Westerman. He owned a small estate in Clarendon, Jamaica. He only arrived back in London six weeks ago. I said all of this to Dido as I came into breakfast. She thinks I should return to St Paul’s and give the authorities his name, but I would rather let things alone.’

Harriet did not normally believe in letting things alone, but neither did she want to place her servant into a position he found uncomfortable. She put her elbow on the curved arm of her chair and rested her chin in her hand. ‘How do you know that he was only recently arrived in town?’

‘I read it in the paper, ma’am. Can’t help my eyes drifting to the West Indies news. Mrs Martin says any mention of the place should be cut out of the page before it’s handed to me.’ He smiled briefly. ‘I admit it darkens my temper. Still, I told the story and Dido said I should go back to St Paul’s – but I do not wish to, and I said so. I believe Dido wishes you to order me to do my Christian and civic duty.’

Harriet turned back to her desk for a moment, and glanced out of the window. Two carriages were drawn up in front of the house and the complicated business of putting some of the family into one, and the rest into the second was in progress. Harriet could see her youngest child, Anne, her hand held firmly by her nurse, watching the developing circus with her usual air of happy enthusiasm until it was her turn to be lifted inside. Harriet would never understand how she had managed to bear such cheerful children. Her temper was more like Susan’s, darkening and brightening suddenly like a sky driven by a high wind. She watched Stephen and Jonathan clambering into the first coach, followed by Graves. Her daughter and the nurse followed them and Philip passed up a hamper to the coachman then clambered up behind. Susan and Eustache were getting more slowly into the second carriage with Mrs Service.